A very common misconception indeed is the idea that computer Power Supply Units (PSU's) always use their MAX rated wattage. Such an idea is absurd. If it were true, you would simply be "burning" watts into thin air. Computer's and their components draw in only the amount of power they need at one moment in time. If this power need were to go up, then the PSU would simply take in more AC power, convert it, and give your components the power they need!
In this FAQ, I will demonstrate a test to tell how many Watts my computer uses while Idle and while Under stress. I will be measuring the total watts used by my Computer with my UPS backup battery. The software included with this piece of hardware comes with a moniter that shows the percentage of power being used at any given time. The UPS I will be using is rated at 660 Watts. Thus, the power usage percent meter would show 100% if 660 watts were being used, 50% if 330 were being used, etc. The computer I will be testing has a 180 Watt PSU, so the meter will never go beyond about 27 percent...and that would not be done unless every piece of equipment was going full blast inside the computer.
My Test Computer Specs:
DELL Dimension 4500S
P4 @ 1.80 GHz
768 MB PC-2700 RAM
Integrated Video Accelerater
40GB 7200RPM Hard Drive
Stock Heatsink/Fan Assembly
CD-RW Drive (Which will not be used)
Floppy Drive (Which will not be used)
This is not the ideal setup that I'd like to use to show this test, but right now, it is all I have...bear with me here. If you don't have integrated Video, then you would see an even bigger change from Idle to Load.
For the test procedure, I restarted the computer. I opened windows task manager, CPU-Z (To show you my specs...) and the Belkin UPS Moniter and let the computer sit for about 10 minutes to get its processes over with...(virus update..all that stuff.) After the wait, I took a screen shot to show the power consumption meter. The meter read 6% at IDLE. This means that my computer, while sitting IDLE uses about 40 Watts - a small light bulb. Here is the IDLE setup picture:
Now, on to the LOAD setup. For this setup, I restarted my computer once more, allowed it to sit and finish its processes, then opened a few programs. I opened the UPS moniter and the Windows Task Manager, along with Folding @ Home which was configured to use 100% processor and also ATI Tools to load the integrated graphics. I started everything up and let it go for 5 minutes. I then took a screen shot and came up with this:
17% loading level. That is a fairly big leap for a small computer like this. We see that the processor draws alot of power when being used under stress. We then take the equation of 660 Watts (the max UPS wattage) x .17 (17%) = 112.2 Watts. Nowhere near the max rated PSU wattage of 180, but we weren't using the HD or CD drive much, so...
In conclusion to this testing, we now see that a PSU does NOT use its max wattage when Idle. So next time you want to leave your computer on all night, just think...as long as you aren't running SuperPI along with Folding @ Home among other stressers, you won't be using up all of that electricity!
In this FAQ, I will demonstrate a test to tell how many Watts my computer uses while Idle and while Under stress. I will be measuring the total watts used by my Computer with my UPS backup battery. The software included with this piece of hardware comes with a moniter that shows the percentage of power being used at any given time. The UPS I will be using is rated at 660 Watts. Thus, the power usage percent meter would show 100% if 660 watts were being used, 50% if 330 were being used, etc. The computer I will be testing has a 180 Watt PSU, so the meter will never go beyond about 27 percent...and that would not be done unless every piece of equipment was going full blast inside the computer.
My Test Computer Specs:
DELL Dimension 4500S
P4 @ 1.80 GHz
768 MB PC-2700 RAM
Integrated Video Accelerater
40GB 7200RPM Hard Drive
Stock Heatsink/Fan Assembly
CD-RW Drive (Which will not be used)
Floppy Drive (Which will not be used)
This is not the ideal setup that I'd like to use to show this test, but right now, it is all I have...bear with me here. If you don't have integrated Video, then you would see an even bigger change from Idle to Load.
For the test procedure, I restarted the computer. I opened windows task manager, CPU-Z (To show you my specs...) and the Belkin UPS Moniter and let the computer sit for about 10 minutes to get its processes over with...(virus update..all that stuff.) After the wait, I took a screen shot to show the power consumption meter. The meter read 6% at IDLE. This means that my computer, while sitting IDLE uses about 40 Watts - a small light bulb. Here is the IDLE setup picture:
Now, on to the LOAD setup. For this setup, I restarted my computer once more, allowed it to sit and finish its processes, then opened a few programs. I opened the UPS moniter and the Windows Task Manager, along with Folding @ Home which was configured to use 100% processor and also ATI Tools to load the integrated graphics. I started everything up and let it go for 5 minutes. I then took a screen shot and came up with this:
17% loading level. That is a fairly big leap for a small computer like this. We see that the processor draws alot of power when being used under stress. We then take the equation of 660 Watts (the max UPS wattage) x .17 (17%) = 112.2 Watts. Nowhere near the max rated PSU wattage of 180, but we weren't using the HD or CD drive much, so...
In conclusion to this testing, we now see that a PSU does NOT use its max wattage when Idle. So next time you want to leave your computer on all night, just think...as long as you aren't running SuperPI along with Folding @ Home among other stressers, you won't be using up all of that electricity!
The Crushanator
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The Crushanator
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